The Los Angeles Chargers are 1-0 on the season after defeating the Las Vegas Raider 22-10 on Sunday.
Things feel different this year for the Chargers with head coach Jim Harbaugh at the helm. Key players have signified their appreciation for what Harbaugh’s already done that deserves respect.
“To have a guy leading the charge like that and a locker room that buys in and follows him, it’s a special day as well for him to get his first win,” quarterback Justin Herbert said, per ESPN’s Kris Rhim.
The Chargers finished the 2023 season with a 5-12 record and have goals exponentially larger than that kind of fate this season. Harbaugh is coming off a national championship win with Michigan, and he brought multiple Wolverines staff members with him to Los Angeles, including defensive coordinator Jesse Minter and director of player performance Ben Herbert. The Michigan influence has been a positive for the team.
Defensive end Khalil Mack, who had 1.5 sacks in Week 1, believes their win against the Raiders, a team that beat the Chargers 63-21 last season, showed how serious they’ve been preparing this offseason.
“It signifies what him and Herb and Minter and everybody has been preaching,” Mack said, per The Athletic. “We’ve been buying in.”
The Chargers are buying in because of the creative ways Harbaugh tries to make a point. For example, Harbaugh gifted the team blue-collar work shirts, per Chargers defensive tackle Poona Ford. The shirt and the message must have worked for Ford, who wore the shirt to the stadium and would go on to have a game-sealing interception in the fourth quarter.
“I wore mine to the game actually,” Ford said, per Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg. “I think Coach Harbaugh’s message was to get ready to go to work. I feel like today we kind of set the tone for what we want to be this season.”
Chargers safety Derwin James Jr. thinks this could be a great year for the team, if they keep doing what they’re doing.
“It can be something special,” James Jr. said. “If we just keep working and don’t get bored with the details and keep buying in.”
While Harbaugh deservedly receives a ton of credit for his Chargers getting a Week 1 win, he knows the best way to continue momentum in Week 2 against the Carolina Panthers and beyond is to not pat himself on the back and direct the focus back on the athletes.
“The culture’s already here. Me and all the new guys, we stepped into it,” Harbaugh said. “We’re the lucky ones. The culture here is work.”
We’ll see if the working culture remains a winning culture this season for the Chargers, who are currently tied for first in the AFC West with the Kansas City Chiefs.
